Saturday, August 9, 2008

Movie Guns XVIII - Super-Post!

I decided to do this week's Movie Guns post by recommendation of Liberty. Some day in the near future I will cover his other request, but when he suggested this week's film I just had to act. Usually before I do a post I watch the movie from start to finish while I take notes. As I was watching this movie I knew it was going to be a super-post. The amount of guns in this movie is unreal; like the director's armorer just said "take everything I've got and load it!"

The movie that Liberty suggested is the film Commando. Released in 1985, it is the quintessential huge-guy-makes-war-with-everyone flick in which a ridiculous amount of guns and ammo are poured onto your screen in an effort to win your attention by attrition by firepower. It works. Commando encompasses every gun cliche' that is in film today, and in fact pioneered most Hollywood firearm inaccuracies, but do not let that take away from this film. Unlike many blockbusters of today, Commando gets right down to the point, and leaves much for the imagination of the viewer.

What's not to like? We have unlimited ammo, bottomless magazines, cheesy one liners, Arnold Schwartzenegger in Speedos doing an amphibious beach landing in hostile territory, an out of shape leather pants clad villain wearing a chain mail vest made out of lavender yarn, black tigerstripe facepaint. . . . the list goes on! There are, of course, severe errors with some of the tactics and gun handling, but that is common in all shoot em' up movies, but I still have to point them out. It's my job. I am a huge fan of this movie so please take my ruthless mocking as tough love.

Let's go.

The opening has two bad guys (BGs) hopping off a garbage truck and gunning down a man with two MAC 10's:

Next, a Major General visits the home of John Matrix (Arnold Schwartzenegger), only to have his Colt Series 70 Combat Commander snatched out of the UM84 type nylon holster and pointed in his face. Notice Matrix's grin and finger on trigger. The hammer is down BTW:

Rule number three, Arnie!!

The General has to tell his two Special Forces guys to "secure the area," despite these two men being "good," and both of them flag the General with their muzzles. Both of them have a XM177 carbine that appears to be some sort of hybrid:

As soon as the General leaves - and I mean he's not even out of sight yet - a BG pops out of the scrub like a jack-in-the-box with a M16A1 and hoses the place down. He kills one of the "good" Soldiers and wounds the other:

There is another BG with a M16 that actually uses the sights:

Matrix decides to go get his guns to fight back, but he doesn't keep them in the house. Instead, he keeps them in a shed secured with a keypad. You would think that he would at least have a pistol handy indoors:Look close and you can see a SPAS 12, a 1911 government size, a revolver of some sort, and what looks like a Detonics Combat Master hanging at the top of the wall.

I don't know why, but Matrix passes on the 1911 and instead stuffs a Beretta Model 86 in his waistband before charging a round in what I presume to be a H&K 91:

The only reason I believe it to be a H&K 91 and not a H&K G3 is that the G3 is select fire, and judging by the shear number of rounds fired in this movie, and considering Matrix only fired a single round out of the gun, then it is more likely a 91.

When Matrix gets his hand-to-hand combat on, about half a dozen BGs take him down, and one of them puts the muzzle of a M16 to his chest to make him stop resisting. You can clearly see that it's a rubber rifle, at one point the camera pans away and then back and one rifle changes flash hiders. And imagine if you were the guy behind Matrix holding him down!

The BGs manage to kidnap Matrix and his daughter, and the leather pants guy with the yarn-mail vest named Bennett (Vernon Wells) shoots Matrix in the guts with a tranquilizer gun:

So Matrix wakes up and the BGs basically blackmail him using his daughter because a former South American president/ex-patriot blah blah blah blah. You gotta love this movie. The script is very thin because shooting is the plot, so we can skip all of the other stuff. Matrix escapes from a plane to South America and checks his Uber Tactical watch:Yup! That watch probably coined the term "Tactical" because it makes a digital ping sound with each passing second. Jack Bauer would be jealous.

So Matrix recruits the help of Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong) to help track a BG named Sully (David Patrick Kelly) who goes into a busy shopping mall where a melee ensues. Legions of police officers and mall ninjas try to take Matrix down, and one BG uses an unknown type revolver to gun down a cop:That would be a worst case situation to be in.

Another cop with a S&W Model 27 gets knocked down the stairs by Cindy:

Sully takes a few shots with this weeks mystery gun, and manages to slay a cop in the process. This is the best shot I could get:

Moving on, Matrix and Cindy go into Sully's hotel room right before a BG named Cooke (Bill Duke) comes in and tries to kill them with this nickel plated S&W Model 27 that he pulls from a leather crossdraw holster:

Then the cheesiest exchange of tough-guy dialog in film history goes down between Matrix and Cooke:

Matrix: "I eat Green Berets for breakfast, and right now I am very hungry!"

There's sparky bullets all over this scene, and after killing Cooke our hero neglects to pick up the revolver or check Cooke's pockets for reloads. Afterwords Matrix and Cindy go to a warehouse where I spotted what looks like a US M3 105mm howitzer:

Next, they break into a military surplus and gun store to pick up some supplies. After grabbing a ballistic vest and some binoculars, Matrix finds the "secret" button to the arms room hidden underneath the cash register. Why anyone would secure this many guns in a room with corrugated aluminum walls with access controlled by a freakin button is beyond me. The beauty is that in this movie it's not really important.

There's a couple of water cooled Browning M1917A1's on one wall, a M60 and a M1A1 Bazooka on another, a IMI Galil, RPK, H&K G3, Uzis in all sizes, a suppressed M16. Matrix grabs a Steyr AUG, some M67 fragmentation grenades, spare AR magazines, a shotgun, and all sorts of other stuff. Keep in mind that all of this ordnance is stored half-assed in a surplus store in 1980's California!

Two cops bust up his party by loudly racking unloaded Remington 870's:

It's a good thing the police didn't handcuff Matrix. He has no problems escaping the police truck with the help of Cindy's steady aim and this M202A1 rocket launcher that visually has no rockets:

The duo get away from the cops and then steal a plane docked at a marina. Two yahoo's in a Jeep trade fire with Matrix by gunning wildly with a Ruger Mini14 with collapsing stock, and a H&K MP5. Notice both have their eyes shut:

When they land in hostile territory, Matrix decides to strip down to his Speedos and paddle a rubber boat to the beach. There he gears up for an assault on the former South American president, Arius' (Dan Hedaya) compound. Why Hollywood thinks that black tigerstrip facepaint actually works is the question of the day. Here Matrix is seen loading a Desert Eagle with magazine baseplate falling off, and then he ties the M67 grenades to his vest by the pin. Those that have carried real grenades know this is a very bad idea:

He then loads his Valmet M78 rifle and casts the view of how anti-gunners picture Virginian NRA members:

Matrix is loaded with entirely too much stuff, and one has to wonder how he can move quietly with all of that gear. As he scans the area with his Uber tactical Steiner binoculars sporting a crazy viewfinder you can see that the shotgun on his back is made of rubber:

Then Matrix sneaks up on the compound and takes out some sentries by stabbing one in the gut, cutting one's throat in an unusually slow manner, and by blasting one with this ballistic knife (best pic I could get):

He stealthily plants some M18 Claymore mines, but he places them with the kablooey end facing the wrong way.

Why would he do that, you may ask? Why, to blow buildings to kingdom come! No exaggerating!

In case you were wondering, ANPERS stands for Anti-Personnel, not anti-building.

Bennett, being the smooth operator that he is, takes off in his lavender yarn-mail with knife in hand to confront Matrix. You can see his holstered 1911 and IMI Micro Uzi, with reloads hanging in his chest rig, and when he busts through the wall of the house you can see that the Uzi rips out of the holster before appearing again in this shot:

Believe it or not, all hell has not yet broken loose. Matrix gets things heated up nicely with the M202A1 rocket launcher:

Then he gets some work done with the M78:

When that runs dry he goes to his trusty Uzi which he uses by firing nice controlled bursts:

And finally his Remington 870:

Notice he doesn't have the gun in his shoulder, nor is he using sights! The shotgun is so devastating that Matrix hits two guys with one shot, one with AK47 and the other with holstered pistol/rubber M16, which knocks them 8 feet back:

Our esteemed hero then gets cornered in a shed where a group of BGs fire machineguns blindly into it in a futile effort to kill him. Despite the awesome firepower wielded by his buddies, one of the men empties his 1911 into the shed as well:

Matrix comes out wielding tactical sawblades with deadly effect:

This is when things start to get out of hand. Matrix picks up a M60E3 machine gun and blasts so many bad guys that they start drowning in their own blood! Here's a shot that may ruin it for you where you can clearly see the blanks and blank firing equipped muzzle:

That's not a DC roadmap! That's the bulging veins in Arnold's arm! Thus, people now believe that only professional body builders make it into Special Forces. Here's a better shot:

Amongst the melee comes this guy who shows that he knows how to handle a rifle, using the sights and all:

There are a bunch of full auto Ruger Mini14's firing in vain at our hero:

At one point, while Matrix is on the roof, you can see that the small belt of rounds is just tied onto the M60 with string. Also during the fight you can see the gun run almost dry before a new belt magically reappears! Good stuff!

Now Arius gets into the fray by shooting at Matrix with a Steyr AUG from the hip:

Matrix keeps his head down with some one handed fire from a M16A1:

The last shots I have is of Bennett aiming a LAR Grizzly Win Mag at Matrix with his big-ass knife:

I don't even need to tell you who wins this one. Whew! What a post! If you haven't noticed already you can click on the pictures to make them bigger. I tried to get at least one shot of every type of gun that I saw, but sometimes you can't tell what they are. I think I got them all this time. Much thanks to the Modern Firearms and Ammunition Site. It's a great resource for figuring out military weapons.